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Peanut butter to the rescue in Somalia famine?

THE Plumpy’nut is coming. But will it arrive in time to save 3.5 million people who the Somali foreign minister says may “starve to death”? Earlier this week the UN World Food Programme airlifted 14 tonnes of the highly enriched “therapeutic” peanut butter to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, for immediate distribution to the 40,000 refugees who have gathered there to escape the triple crisis of drought-aggravated famine, war and escalating food prices.

Since it was recommended by the World Health Organization in 2007 as the emergency food of choice for malnourished infants, Plumpy’nut, manufactured by French company Nutriset, has …